


dirty dirty carnivore

by Civillain



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Moral Ambiguity, Psychological Horror, Time Loop, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21948337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Civillain/pseuds/Civillain
Summary: Luffy goes back again, and again, and again.There's little changes, little things that happen, little things that don't, but the important part is that he has his crew alongside him the entire time, right?It would be, if his crewwerebeside him.(The effect is more psychological than it ever will be physical.)(Time loop/time travel)
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy & Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates
Comments: 30
Kudos: 184
Collections: A Collection of Beloved Inserts, Terrific Time Travel Fics





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This actually is in chronological order

Bellamy laughs.  
His laugh is loud, crass, and cruel, gleeful in that way of a hyena, only finding glory in other people's pain.

("Sky Island?" Bellamy cackles, "You want to go to Sky Island!" 

His laugh echoes and sounds like a disease, wormy and disgusting.)

Nami's eyebrows are drawn together like they do when she's stressed, and the shadows under her eyes are more apparent than ever, cast low by the bar's shoddy lights. She's angry.  
Bellamy says something more, and the corner of Nami's lip twitches. Downwards, not upwards.

She does this a lot, when she's mad but can't say anything. _Shouldn't _say anything, she always tells him when he asks her why,_ and it's because she knows what to say and when, to get what she wants and how she wants it._

Nami's smart like that, smart in a way Luffy knows he'll never be.

Zoro's mouth is pressed flat, and his lips are so thin that they look like they'd snap right in half if he ever tried to curve them. Downwards or upwards. It wouldn't matter.  
His glare is razor-sharp, scathing, and also blunted with irritation.

He lurches when Bellamy leans forward, and grits his teeth when someone jeers.

(But in all seriousness, Zoro won't make a move, even though his eyes are like knives)

(The bar is louder than ever when Bellamy throws a bottle at Luffy's face. Glass tumbles about his ears, shattering when it hits the ground, but he doesn't hear it. All he hears is Bellamy's howl of laughter, Nami's furious gasp, and Zoro's grunt. They all sound different.)

(But they all sound the same.)

Luffy has already been here once before.

The waves are loud in his ears.  
The dinghy is small, sturdy for a borrowed fishing boat, and it's made of worn wood and rusty nails. But those were all stitched together with a steady hand, and so the dinghy was born steady as well, able to brave small whirlpools and crashing storms.

But, he realizes, with a distinct lack of Nami here to guide them, a dinghy is useless if it can't navigate.

("Zoro," he says, and he draws it out like a whine, slow and petulant, "I'm hungry."

He gets an incredulous glare as a response.)

The Zoro of right now gives him only distrustful stares and frustrated growls, but there's disbelief, there, too- Luffy knows this all too well, because this is the Zoro that he had for the first few days after they first met. 

_Blackmailed me, _Zoro had snorted cynically to the rest of them, when asked why he had joined,_ got me my swords and wouldn't let me free unless I became a part of his crew. A one man crew, at that._  
Zoro had added that last part just to be petty. He always stifled a smirk with a scowl afterwards, hiding the upturn of his lips with a downturn, that scowl becoming real when Nami teased him about it.

But that isn't the Zoro of right now. The Zoro of right now is the one right after Coby, after Rika, after the axe-hand guy and his son, but he is also the Zoro before Nami.

("You tell me that after we find out way out of this damn ocean!" Zoro barks.

Luffy laughs it off, twisting onto his feet when something flies overhead.)

But it started with Zoro, started with Luffy, and it's been the two of them for days, because neither know how to command the seas (though Luffy will command the seas in a different way, someday) and they need Nami for that.

("I'll catch it!" he exclaims, leaping for the bird.)

He doesn't even bother to look back at Zoro's face, since he already knows what'll be there. Though he didn't see it the first time around, he can _feel _that grudging approval turn into frustrated exasperation, and then warp into mild horror as the bird flies away, Luffy's head in its clutch.__

__(But this is okay, he thinks, as he gets carted away, Nami's going to be here soon, and then we'll be able to sail together.)_ _

__

__

__When he hits his head against the cage, the sound reverberates through his body, into his chest, down to his toes._ _

___You have an empty skull,_ Ace always said. _Do you even have a brain? Jeez, Luffy!_

__("I just need to get their treasures and I'll let you out afterwards, okay? Just sit tight, idiot.")_ _

__Nami looks at him with only disdain in her eyes, hatred brought up and forth by the mention of_ pirate._  
The Nami of right now does not hate him- because she does not _know _him, but she speaks to him with a coolness not unlike the way she speaks to strangers at a bar; when she's tricking them out of their money, out of their funds, out of their everythings. It's the way she speaks when she is using somebody.__

__And right now, Nami is only using him._ _

__("I'm hungry," he tells her.  
She brings him food, and he tells her that she's a good person after all. _ _

__She rejects it.)_ _

__("Turn him into mincemeat!" Buggy commands, and his crew chants his words like they're a broken record- in tandem but also not at all.)_ _

__Buggy has a bright red nose, round and blinking like an apple in the sun, and Luffy really wants to squeeze it._ _

__He says so out loud.  
(Nobody seems to hear it.)_ _

__

__They fire up the cannon, and Luffy looks straight into the mouth of it, at the darkness where he already knows the cannonball is hiding. Nami stands behind the weapon, a match in one hand and her other hand clutching at the hem of her shirt, sweat staining white into grey.  
She's nervous and angry, but at who? At Luffy, at Buggy, at pirates in general. At herself, he already knows, because her knees are shaking and that familiar look of self-hatred is there again, plastered across her face like a blotch of something dirty, something besmearing. _ _

__She had that same look on her face as she told him to leave Cocoyasi, told him to leave after she left him, left_ them_ for something that mattered more.

But it's mostly anger, right now.

("You mean I should be prepared to kill someone like it's nothing?!" she snaps.

"No," he grins back, "You should be prepared to risk your own life.")

And she does.  
(Again.)

Crocodile's voice is gritty like the sand.

Well, Luffy muses, he is a sandman. Maybe he has a lot of sand stuck in his throat.

("I'll leave you here to die," Crocodile leers. The hook slips out of Luffy's chest, and Luffy slips down into the ground, into the sand.)

This time he didn't even get to fight.  
Just blinked back into life with a hook through his ribs, Crocodile's face inches from Luffy's own, and that cold, cold, look in his eyes. The scar running across his face crosses tight under the bridge of his nose, and his hair is slicked back with shiny gel.

This Crocodile isn't too different from the Crocodile at Impel Down.

Except he has less scars, and his hair is slicked back by gel, not oily grease, and his eyes are crueler, maybe more hateful- the Crocodile of Impel Down had the same eyes, but there was respect, there, too; when he looked at Luffy.  
Right now, there is none.

Right now, he looks at Luffy like he's a pest, an obstacle, nothing but a hindrance. 

But that's okay.  
Right now, _Crocodile's nothing but a pest, all the same. ___

__

__("LUFFY!" Vivi cries.)_ _

__

__Blood-soaked and ragged breaths, wracking coughs that make his body, quaver, and the dust in his face burns his eyes. All he can think about is Crocodile._ _

__(But not Crocodile, not really. It's Vivi. Alabasta was always only ever about Vivi.)_ _

__("Why are you still alive?!" Crocodile roars.)_ _

__

__He feels like he's going to-_ _

__-fall. He might fall down._ _

__Every joint aches, every part of him actually_ hurts,_ and why is that? He avoided the blows. He knows he did. They didn't touch him, didn't even graze him- but there's poison settling into his veins, gashes and bruises where there was nothing before-

_This is weird, _he thinks to himself privately.__

__But that's okay.  
After all, everything is weird right now._ _

__

__Crocodile goes flying, and Luffy watches him go._ It's not quite satisfaction,_ he decides, _that feeling running through his nerves, but it's something close. Something nearly there. ___

__There's cheers erupting outside, growing louder as the building weakens. A large chunk of concrete crashes down, only feet away from his face, and Luffy blinks, slow and steady.  
Crocodile's done, for the second time, and Luffy feels...better._ _

__(For Vivi. It was only ever for Vivi.)_ _

__

__

__("He was delicious!" Luffy teases. The kids shriek.)_ _

__

__Usopp always told him stories, both when they first met and for the years that came after._ _

___Luffy, Chopper,_ he always said, on nights when the seas were calm and the moon was bright, _-have I ever told you about the time I fought off a Sea King? ___

 _ _Chopper would bounce in his seat, stars in his eyes; and look at Usopp like he was explaining the secrets of the world.  
_Wow!_ Chopper exclaimed, _Tell us! Tells us! ___

__Luffy would echo, and then Usopp would puff out his chest and stand up, glowing with pride. He'd pace the room and bend down low when he lowered his voice, wave into the air when his voice went high, gesturing to push his words along, and it would be like magic, the way he could weave words.  
And then Zoro would snort from where he sat on the sofa and call him a liar. Usopp would deny, and Chopper would gasp with surprise, but sometimes- usually- Zoro listened to the stories too, with closed eyes and slow sighs through his nose._ _

__

__("They're coming, the pirates are coming!" Usopp yells, warns- but no one believes him.)_ _

__

__Usopp gets called a liar every time, even to his face. People laugh at him, tell him his lies are stupid-_ _

___Aren't they stories, though?_ Luffy sometimes asks.  
Because they are stories, just like the ones Makino used to tell him in the bar, when business was slow and Gramps didn't visit, when Shanks left and he was _lonely, _and even before then. And he loves them.  
But it seems not everybody does, and Usopp is left with a failing smile, false bravado put up in the face of hurt.__

__That isn't okay, not at all; but Luffy will make it okay. He'll love Usopp's stories so much that those people won't even matter._ _

__

__("I knew your father. He talked our ears off about you!"_ _

__Usopp's eyes go wide.)_ _

__Right._ _

__Luffy hums into his hands, blowing out cool air through his fingers._ _

___There was this time, too._  
There was this time, when Usopp would light up at the stories that Luffy told _him, _hang onto every word like his life depended on it- and not the other way around.__

 _ __Yasopp,_ Luffy thinks, _Usopp really misses Yasopp. ___

__

__

__Screams echo around him, and he wishes he could just shut it all out. Cupping his ears does nothing._ _

__He's here again.  
Again and again, he's going to have to watch Ace (die)._ _

__There's an ache in his chest, a pressure in his lungs, and of course a sob escapes him but he's too caught up in the_ whirl_ of it all- right now, Ace is still alive.

Would it make a difference if he just- reached out and grabbed him?

("LUFFY!" Ace cries. His voice sounds raw.)

Of course it will.  
Of course he can save him, right?

Nothing makes any fucking sense.

Haki does nothing. It's useless, until it isn't, and then all of a sudden half of the people- pirate and marine alike- are all knocked out?  
Supposedly, he's the one who did it, because Gramps stares with wide eyes, unblinking, open-mouthed shock clear on his face. As he runs towards the platform, dirty curses are spit at him, people jump back in fear, and someone yells ("Ace's brother!").

He isn't really sure.  
It's not like he can really remember anything from this time, anyways.  
(He tried so hard to shut it out, to scrub at his hands and face and chest until he never had to see Ace's blood again.)

("ACE!" he calls out.

Ace looks at him with dread in his eyes.)

Why can't he control his body?  
He runs where he's supposed to, hits who he knows should go down, but none of it works.  
In one place, people ignore him, and in the others, they land blows on him that shouldn't have landed.

When he reaches Ace, finally, _finally _-__

__

__It's over as quickly as it had started._ In the blink of an eye,_ Nami had always grumbled, staring down into an empty treasury. 

_And it's all gone. ___

__(He cradles Ace's body in his hands, cradles Ace's cheeks and hair and begs him to wake up._ _

__The smoldering hole in Ace's chest tells him things he never wanted to know again.)_ _

__

__

___Chance isn't kind,_ Rayleigh said one day. _And neither is time. _  
Luffy hadn't really cared what that meant, and so he never asked.  
Maybe he should have.__

__

__

__The next time he opens his eyes, it's to Ace's face._ _

__("I know he's a handful, but please, take care of him for me!" and he gives them all that cheeky grin, the one that makes his freckles sidle up his cheeks and under his eyes.)_ _

__

__Luffy sobs._ _

__He sobs and cries and tries to push it all down but all the tears keep dripping down his face and no matter how many times he wipes his eyes, the water_ keeps coming._ It won't stop.  
He claws at his throat, scratching until the sharp pain on the outside numbs the ache on the inside, and scrapes until he sees blood on his hands.

_Oh, _he thinks distantly, absently-_ At least this isn't Ace's blood._

Nobody pays any heed, and by the time he composes himself, Ace is gone.

(I see.)

He doesn't smile at his crew mates, but they smile at him, and Usopp comes up to him and pats him on the back with a beam.

("Your brother seems really cool!" he says.)

Nami nods and snickers, flicking a loose strand of hair behind her neck.

("Can't believe two brothers can be so different. He's so polite, Luffy!")

Chopper giggles, Sanji offers grudging agreement- though only for Nami, and Zoro...Zoro gives Luffy a _look. ___

 _ _Then he gives everybody else a different_ look,_ something like incredulous anger or fierce infuriation, eyes sharp and narrowed like there's something wrong-

-but even that twists into hesitation. Zoro blinks rapidly and shakes his head, and relaxes back into a slouch.

(Well.)

That night, Luffy closes his eyes and lets himself bleed onto the pillows, willing his silent shaking to stop.  
_Next time, _he promises himself,_ Next time I'll tell Ace about Sabo._  
(As if that would do anything?)

(Well, he would do anything for it to work.)

He isn't going to get the chance, just yet.  
The Baratie is loud in a busy way, simmering pots and chopping boards, lively chatters and angry shouts.

("Join my crew!" he grins. 

Sanji raises an eyebrow.)

He steals a glance to the right, where the guy Sanji had fed sits, staring up at him bemusedly.

("The Grand Line is a dangerous place," he warns.)

Luffy beams back at him.

_I know. ___

__

__Luffy's supposed to be working for the ship. He doesn't remember what had happened, but it had to do with a cannon-ball and Sanji's old man's leg._ _

__He sneaks out anyways, plopping himself beside Nami at the table._ _

__("It's a chef's duty." Sanji declares, fingers splayed under a metal tray. He sets it down on the table in front of them, and his face lights up as he does. He seems pleased.)  
(But not contented.)_ _

__

__This Sanji looks at Nami with fervor in his eyes, looks at Usopp and Zoro with indifference, offers up sweet compliments and deadpan rejections and biting scowls._ _

__This Sanji is different from the one he knows, who looks at Nami with affection, with devotion, who looks at Usopp like he looks at a brother, a friend, and squabbles with Zoro, but then smirks and fights_ with_ him, back-to-back against a common enemy.

He really misses that Sanji.  
He misses all of his friends.

("Join my crew," he says again.)  
He can't help it, but there's a little bit of desperation there too, urging and hopeful.  
He isn't expecting a response, because no one can hear him when he does this, says and does things that aren't supposed to be said and done- not really, anyways, but-

Sanji freezes, and his body goes still.

"...what? Luff-" his eyebrows raise up into his forehead, into his hair, and there's open shock on his face when he whirls around, like he can't believe where he is-

-but then something blank crosses over his face, and the moment is gone.

It's like Luffy never said anything at all.

(Huh.)

Coby's voice is squeaky and high-pitched, nervous and jumpy.

("Ah, I hate people like you." Luffy tells him.)

_I hate that you aren't the friend I know. ___

__

__This Coby is short. He barely comes up to even Luffy's chest, and that's ridiculous- because the Coby he remembers was almost the same height as him. He's weak, too, tripping over his own two feet every three steps he takes, and trembling over the mere mention of 'alvin' or something._ _

__("You'll die if you try to fight her!" Coby wails.)_ _

__Luffy frowns at him, scratching the back of his neck lightly.  
(There're no marks on his throat.)_ _

__Coby- the Coby he_ knows,_ not this person, who cries and pleads him to not go outside and die- Coby could easily take on whoever this 'avido' is. He'd wipe the floor with her, because Coby is...Coby is...

Hm. 

"I should teach you how to punch," he says, a little wonderingly. But it isn't like Coby can hear him anyways, so he doesn't expect a response. If this Coby could hear him, would he even want to be taught?

Of course he would.  
This is still Coby, even if this isn't the Coby he knows.

Luffy stretches his back and yawns, twisting past the broken door to head upstairs. Coby'll follow him, and then they'll go find Zoro. That's how this works.

And if he falls asleep before they find Zoro, then he'll wake up somewhere else. 

That's how this works.

There's a scuffling noise behind him, and Luffy glances over his shoulder.

Coby stares up at him with wide, wide eyes from behind his thick-rimmed glasses, his hands clenched into fists by his sides. He still quavers, swaying where he stands, but he gives Luffy a squared stare and says:

"Will you- will you really teach me?"

"Wha-?"

"Will you really teach me how to fight?!"

Oh.

Something flutters in his chest.  
(Maybe it's hope.)

He shows Coby the basic positions, footholds and gestures, the stances and postures, (all the stuff Ace taught him years ago) and Coby takes it all in, obviously nervous- but intensely focused all the same. He stumbles three times, even though he's only throwing mock punches, and crashes himself into multiple crates, but that's alright.

Luffy can _talk _to him. For_ real._

"Like that!" Luffy encourages, even when Coby can't quite get it right. He'll get it sometime.  
And he keeps up with the praises, because there's this swell of _longing _in his throat, because he's (felt lonely for so long and there's finally someone who'll talk to him).__

__

__But then Coby freezes, mid-pose, and collapses to his knees._ _

__It's only for a brief second, but Luffy sees recognition flash in his eyes, the hands that reach up to touch an empty forehead, and an almost-mouthed out "Luffy?"_ _

__

__Then even that's gone, and Coby's face wipes itself blank._ _

__("Ah! What will we do if Alvida finds us?!")_ _

__

__Luffy almost throws up in his mouth.  
He doesn't. It goes back down._ _

__"Al-Avid- Whale Lady is weak," Luffy says cheerily. He gives Coby a great big smile, and flashes him a merry thumbs-up. "So, do'ya think you can beat her in a fight now?"_ _

__No response.  
Coby keeps talking to someone who isn't there._ _

__(Was there. Was there, once.)_ _

__

__

__("Who would ever want a monster like me?")_ _

__Chopper doesn't want to join him. He dodges and runs, hiding on the wrong sides of walls and digging himself under beds, set on getting away._ _

__("Join us!" Luffy insists.)_ _

__His doctor eyes him like he'd just finished wiping drool from his mouth._ _

__(Maybe he was, at the time. But not right now. Why can no one see? He can't do anything, because everything he does does (nothing.))_ _

__

__Chopper._ _

___Chopper,_ Usopp would always complain, _My arm hurts. ___

__Chopper's eyes would go wide, and he would grab as many medical supplies as he could carry and set them all down right after examining Usopp's arm.  
He'd apply bandages and softly-stern warnings, worry always clear, always there. _ _

___How'd you get this bruise?_ he'd ask. He'd look up at Usopp with big, round, eyes, and he'd look so concerned that Usopp would have to grudgingly spit it all out, no fancy stories to tell.

_Fell off while trying to climb the mast, _he'd whisper, face flushed red with embarrassment.__

__

__Luffy would laugh where he'd be seated nearby, slapping his thighs and until he ran out of breath, and then those laughs would die down into snickers; and he'd only go on to embarrass Usopp further._ _

___He did it because I called him a chicken._

Usopp would splutter denials until Chopper finished. And he'd lift his arms and smile gently, proudly- because he's proud of Chopper, they all are- and he'd say, _You're the best doctor around, Chopper. ___

__Chopper would wiggle where he stands and wave off the compliment, clearly pleased but in hasty dissent._ You bastard! What a lie!_

(What a lie? You're telling the biggest lie right here.)

("No one would ever want me! I'm just a monster!")

This Chopper looks at them with fear. Fear of _rejection, _actually, and Luffy knows this-recognizes this- because he's seen it already before, so many times, in Usopp, in Robin, in Sanji-after Cake Island, and then in_ Ace._

Not 'and then.'  
_Back _then, maybe.__

__After all, Luffy's already failed his brother two times._ _

__

__

__("BRAT!" Crocodile roars.)_ _

__It's Crocodile again, with his slicked-back hair and horizontal scar._ _

__The seastone cage is rough against his own skin, but a second later and he can't even feel it. A second later, and he can't feel anything, really._ _

__("Luffy!")_ _

___Not supposed to touch it._

Right now, he's supposed to jerk back and then get pinned down by Smoker's Jitte. Then Nami and Usopp are going to scream, Zoro will rear up where he sits, and Smoker will scowl and tell him about the effects of a Devil Fruit.

But he can't muster up the energy to move at all.

He can skip this if he goes to sleep.

Nothing will change, anyways.  
In an hour, they'll be free, and then it'll be time to beat Crocodile's ass.

("I'll take you up on your offer. After all, it's your fault I'm still alive.")

Robin is cold, sharp in a way he doesn't quite remember. 

Her eyes are darker, her hands cooler when she touches his arm, and she doesn't smile the way she's supposed to, with warmth fluttering at her lips and with kind eyes.

This Robin is... _jaded, _Nami told him one time, in the dead of the night. Usopp's snores echoed through the halls, and Robin had finally fallen asleep in front of them for the first time, breathing lightly from where she slept on the armchair._ She's been through a lot, and I guess she has a lot of trouble trusting us._

But that isn't it, not at all.  
This Robin has something like walls around her, made out of arms and legs and feelings, made out of distance and abandonment and protection.

Enies Lobby. And the pigeon guy.  
She left them (to protect them).

In Alabasta, moments before everything collapsed, she slumped down, eyes empty and barren. ("I have nothing to live for." she said. And she meant it.)  
No one to live for, maybe.

Robin was lonely.

And so he has to shout it out, scream for her to not die. 

("ROBIN! TELL ME YOU WANT TO LIVE!")

And the flag bursts into flames.

_Take me out to sea with you. ___

__

___Honesty is a fallacy,_ Robin had murmured, one day. They were in the library, and she was leafing through books with contentment in her eyes, flipping through pages and reading as if her life were centered around the words on a page.

_Flacy? _he asked. He leaned over to get an eyeful of what she was reading, but he couldn't see any 'flacy's.'__

__She gave him a look, one he recognized as almost searching, in a way; before she pursed her lips and smiled in that gentle way of hers.  
A hand rose out of the table and guided itself up to Luffy's face, gently brushing a lock of hair back behind his ear._ _

___Well...maybe that isn't always the case._

"You were honest that time." he says. It's out-of-the-blue, because it's a calm day and he feels likes he needs to say something, and Robin's beside him with sunglasses in hand. She won't hear it, but he hasn't gone to sleep yet, the sun still sinking into the water with orange streaking through the sky.

If he says these things now, with precious memories still in mind, then maybe things will hurt less.

(They don't. Things don't hurt less at all.)

"Honest when?" Robin asks. 

Luffy jerks his head to the side, and looks back into Robin's curious gaze.

She heard him. She responded.  
There's that same hope tickling his insides again.

"At Enies Lobby!" 

"...oh," she murmurs. She gives him a curious look, trailing her fingers over the ridges of her sunglasses to pull them down her face. 

"What brought that on, captain?"

What brought that on?

He really, really, misses his crew.

And this is his crew. He knows that this is, but at the same time, they aren't, not _really. _  
They aren't the same people who've been through everything with him together, the same people who he's dragged into adventures and fun things and laughed and cried with him.__

__He loves them all the same, of course, because they're his friends, his crew.  
(But really, he doesn't. The people who he loves the most are trapped somewhere in his memories.)_ _

__For now, though, he has Robin. She's talking to him, responding, listening-_ _

__"Robin," he says, and it comes out frantic, close to frenzied, almost- since when has he been so desperate?- "what if I have to keep seeing the same things over and over and over again?"_ _

__

__Robin never delays.  
She doesn't ask about pointless things, doesn't look at him like he's crazy or stupid like other people do, and so when he asks her about something, she's always there to answer. No matter how strange the question might seem to her. Robin must have the answers, right?_ _

__"Tell me about it," she whispers. She stares him square in the eyes and he stares back. She wants to hear him talk about it._ _

__

__So he does._ _

__It comes spilling out like a dam's been broken, splintered beyond repair- and yeah, he's liked talking about things before but he's never gotten emotional over just_ words._ But that ache in his chest comes rushing back in, and his throat chokes up on something that isn't there, and soon he finds it's hard to keep himself upright without support, and so he leans onto Merry's bow and looks down into the water as he speaks.

Robin's face fluctuates only subtly, and her eyes steadily widen and grow bigger and bigger. Then her fingers twitch from where they rest on the bow when he talks about Marineford, but she doesn't react in any other way.

Marineford hasn't happened yet, here at this time. Robin probably hasn't even met Ace before.

But. 

If she can hear him, if he can really talk to her as he is now, can he do something about it? Would anything he do actually have an effect? Could he help Merry? Can Ace- ?

(Well, he'd keep trying regardless.)

"Captain," she says when he's finished, and it sounds solemn, now, "When did this first start?"

"I don't know." he tells her. He really doesn't. 

Thinking back on it, (and wouldn't Nami call that the ninth wonder of the world) he had never actually stopped to keep track of time, and had eventually begun to use his first meetings with his friends as markers.

"I...the first one was..."

He's struggling over it.

How long has it been, really, for him to no longer be able to remember the big things, for him to be able to remember the things that are supposed to matter? If he can't remember them, if he can't-

Oh, but- that isn't true, either, is it?

He remembers the little things, the little moments, the precious times he's spent with his crew.

"...right after...Franky told me that he was going to add something to Sunny."

Franky? she mouths.

"My shipwright," Luffy explains. "And he's the best shipwright! Ever! He's so cool, he's a robot and he can do cool robot things, and he even made it so Sunny could go underwater and he has LASERS."

Robin blinks but takes it all in stride, stifling a smile with her hand. 

"He joins us, then, does he?"

"I stole his underwear and wouldn't give it back until he joined."

Robin hums and nods, but says nothing. 

"And then you grabbed his-" but he has to stop, (choke down more vomit) because:

Robin's face has gone blank.  
And so it's like they never even had a conversation at all.

It's not because of what he had said.

It's because of what she can no longer hear.

("Straw hat-ya.")

Torao has murky eyes, and they're very much like Robin's. 

But they aren't murky in a muddy way, like when dirty sand mixes with water, but rather- clear, too, like daggers made of stained glass. 

("Yeah?" he says.)

("Let's form an alliance.")

There's blends of different intentions in there. Luffy never would've heard it before, the way he was then- with the wind howling in his ears and the excitement, the adrenaline, the everything- 

-and he still has all of that now, yes, but he's also gained something else. What can it be called? That thing Nami calls 'awareness'? The ability to understand better?

_You're too naïve, Luffy. You can't just trust everyone that offers you a smile. ___

__

__Well._ _

__Law isn't smiling at him, is he?_ _

__

__("Okay.")_ _


	2. Chapter 2

Alabasta is a sea of whirling sand, a storm of dust and war.

It’s Crocodile _again, _with his twisted hook and his twisted eyes, crooked snarl and poisoned words. There's nothing but disdain in the arch of his brows, and Vivi shakes as she dangles in his grip.__

__("You aren't going to save your country." he says, low and cold. Vivi's face crumbles, and Crocodile's grip goes slack.)_ _

__When Luffy slams into the man, it's with all of his anger, all of the fury blistering hot in his chest, in his lungs. It's all there for Vivi, because it's always been for Vivi- it always_ will be,_ of course, and he'll defeat Crocodile no matter what the cost- 

(But somehow, his punches are just as weak as they were before. He gets thrown off the roof, discarded and half-dead, and everyone around him has already vanished.)

He lies there for a moment. Hardly a few seconds, but the time drags by him like the remnants of a dying snail, leaden and pained with the weight of the world on its back.  
Vivi's face flits across the backs of his eyelids in that moment.

Her cheeks are tear-stained, freckled with sand.

(He gets back up, eyes half lidded and knees dragging. Crocodile's waiting.)

Nami's voice in his ears grows louder every time he hears it.

("A pirate? Why would _I _become a pirate?")__

__She winks at him from her place next to Buggy, twirling the drink in her hand playfully- though her eyes are anything but. It's that cold calculation, the ice in her glare as she sneers the word like it's an insult._ _

__And to her, it probably is._ _

__("Fire the cannon," Buggy says. Jeers rise up around him, and Luffy watches as Nami's mouth twists down in a scowl.)_ _

__But Nami is Nami, as she is and always will be, and Luffy has never doubted her since._ _

__(She pivots on her heel and knocks the man back with the butt of her staff, and Luffy laughs._ _

__He laughs even harder when she turns back around to shoot him a dirty look.)_ _

__

__

__("Oh! Looks like I've wandered onto someone else's boat!")_ _

__Bon appears on their ship with wide smiles and gleeful laughter._ _

__Luffy's heart thrums when he jumps up and hugs his friend tight, arms wrapped around him two times for good measure. He yells happy 'hellos' and 'how've you been?!'s but do any of them reach Bon's ears?_ _

__("Watch this!" Bon's hand slams into something Luffy can't see, and Usopp cries out in alarm.)_ _

__

__Of course not._ _

__"I haven't seen you in forever!" Luffy exclaims, continuing on as if he hadn't just been ignored. He lets a giggle bubble out of his throat, gesturing wildly and urging for Chopper to see how cool Bon is. But Chopper, who's_ right there_ in front of him, smiles and stares straight through him.  
As if he can't see him.

As if he doesn't exist.

If anyone else hears him (of which no one does) there's no response. 

Luffy lets himself slide to the floor with a quiet 'oomph.'

And watches as his own grin, reflected onto Bon's face, warps into something that he can't even recognize anymore.

("That's seastone." Smoker mutters. "Devil-fruit users can't touch it.")

Luffy groans, kicking up at the air with his back to the floor. Zoro's gotten mad and Nami's started shouting, so he figures Smoker has pinned him to the floor.

And while Luffy would give anything to be able to talk to his friends again, seastone's no good at all.

"I know, I know." he grumbles, and knocks his head into the ground petulantly, glaring at Crocodile's smug smile.  
Him again.

Always here, always there, causing trouble for Vivi (and her people). 

And just watching the guy, with his sandy, stupid face, sends a tingle down his spine.

"Hey, Smokey." he says. Though he's greeted with silence, he ignores the echo of his voice, (always too loud in his own ears) and flips himself over to prop his chin up with one arm. "When we get outta here, you know Crocodile's mine, right?"

"The hell?" Smoker says back. He freezes, for a moment, but seems to gather his bearings in the next, and Luffy doesn't dodge the hand that slams into his neck. 

"Straw hat." he growls, like it's a ritual greeting, and Luffy grins back, teeth bared.

"Crocodile's mine." he repeats.

Smoker levels a sharp stare at him, pointedly ignoring his words with a darkening frown. 

"What," he says slowly, his grip tightening, "-have you gotten me into this time?"

Luffy tilts his head just a little, gasps in the smallest breath and then grins wider, his lips stretched across his cheeks. "Seastone!" he says.  
A split second, and Smoker's eyes flash with irritation. 

Luffy gets thrown across the floor. 

When he skids to a stop by Zoro's feet, the pure feeling of _being acknowledged _tumbles down his throat and melts into his heart; and it hits him so hard that he can't stop_ smiling-_

"Let's fight." he says in a rush.

Smoker's already a step ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to call this an interlude but it really isn't  
> It's really short but I wanted to cut out build-up and put things together properly  
> but the biggest thing is my complete lack of stamina :V


End file.
